Fire & Water (24 page)

“This is the best moment of my life,” Jake said, his voice not so much made up of words, but more an exhalation of a thought.

We stood there wrapped together until the cold began to penetrate and I started to shiver.

“Let’s go back to where it’s warm,” he said.

“But I don’t want to leave this. I’ve never seen anything like it. I wish we could photograph it.”

“We don’t need a picture. This is ours forever.”

* * *

Back in the warmth of our bed we made love for the first time since Jake had come home from the hospital. I’d had no champagne, but felt drunk with all that my senses had absorbed. His skin smelled of the lake’s fresh moss. Eyes closed, I could still feel the cool of the water and see the shimmer of starlight on my skin.

We lay together, all breath and heartbeats until the bullfrog resumed his call. After we rested there a while, I found a whisper. “I’ve been so scared.”

“I’m not just sorry. I’m so far past sorry that the light from sorry doesn’t even shine on where I am.”

“We can’t let you get tired like that. We can’t let you get so run down that it brings on—you know.”

Jake turned onto his back and I could see the strength of his profile. “I wasn’t just tired, Kat. You know that, don’t you?”

I nodded.

“I want to promise you only moments like this one. I want to make our life with our daughter perfect.”

Perfect.
I thought of how my own father tried to make my childhood
perfect
. How I’d had a
perfect
plan for my life and career. “That’s not realistic. There will be dirty diapers and sleepless nights and fevers. We’ll catch her ditching school and leaving her room a mess. We’ll get tired and crabby. Things can’t be perfect all of the time. We’ll fight and disappoint each other and—”

His eyes pleaded with me. “But all of that stuff
is
perfect, Kat. That’s all of the stuff I never had. I just don’t want to be a disaster as a husband and a dad… as a person.”

Jake’s upbringing had been privileged: the best schools, homes all over the world, servants. But he’d never had any semblance of family life. My patchwork family was flawed, but I’d grown up surrounded with people who loved me, even lied to protect me.

“I’m scared too,” I confessed. “I don’t know how to play with children the way you do. I was a serious kid. I studied and obeyed the rules. I don’t know if I’ll be a good mother.”

“Maybe between the two of us we’ve got enough to be one really good parent.”

“It’ll take the both of us. Together.”

Jake wrapped his body around mine. “Together.”

Monday's Child

Once we got home from Canada, we settled into a nesting routine, readying ourselves for Ryan’s arrival. The garden had grown lush, its blossoms and leaves erasing any visible memory of destruction. I hung the photograph that Burt had given us in Ryan’s nursery so we’d see it whenever we sat in the rocker. Sometimes, as I waited for her birth, I sat and gazed at it; The Nest, he’d called it, and I rubbed my belly talking to my little hatchling.

One November morning, I went downstairs to find Jake working early in his studio. Morning cast a hazy white light over him as he hunched over his drafting table. My hair, damp from showering, rested heavy and cold against my cotton maternity shirt. I stepped close enough to Jake that the fragrance of his shampoo met me, but he seemed not to notice that I’d entered the room.

“Whatcha up to?” I asked.

He flinched, startled by my voice, and then settled. “Morning, sleepyhead.” His supple lips found mine. “Mmm. If I’d known you were going to feel so nice, I’d have woken you up for a little playtime before I came down to work. But you looked so cute with that line of drool between your mouth and the pillow.”

“Very nice, making fun of a pregnant lady.”

Ryan, due in just three weeks, banged around inside as she always did when Jake was near. He pressed his cheek against her. “Morning, lamb,” he whispered.

“All right, you two. Enough roughhousing.”

As Jake sipped his coffee, I snatched a peek over his shoulder at his colorful drawing. Under a moody sky stood the Golden Gate Bridge. The bridge’s towers appeared just as they did in the view from our kitchen window—powerful and dramatic, persimmon against a dove-gray sky. My heart clutched as I took in the surreal additions Jake had made to the landmark. Interwoven strands formed a web that draped from the bridge’s span. The net was adorned with thousands of what appeared to be shimmering, irregular glass shards in blues, greens, and silvers. Like a jeweled jigsaw puzzle, the waterfall cascaded into the bay below. The flow was punctuated by blooms of red-orange flame, with fire and water blending together.

“What do you have there?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light.

“Just some images that keep coming to me. Every night in my dreams I—” Jake stopped, suddenly reading my face. “Relax will you? This is just how I work.”

I wanted to ask more—to pick and make sure he was not launching back into the obsessions of fire and water from two months before. Questions were a logjam in my mind.

Jake rested his head against my heart. “You have every right to be nervous. You did have a husband that went pyro and got shipped to the nuthouse.” He looked up, traced the flesh of my lower lip with his thumb, and then kissed me. His voice was tender. “You should dry your hair. It’s chilly out. You don’t want to catch a cold.”

“Old wives’ tale,” I whispered. “Temperature has nothing to do with viral transmission.”

Jake had remained true to his word. He ate well, put on weight, slept regularly, and had regular sessions with Dr. Gupta to monitor medication. He resumed his role as my companion and passionate lover, making me feel sexy and adored despite my expanding girth—or even because of it.

“Tully’s due. Ready for car shopping?”

Jake had convinced me that my old Bug wasn’t safe for the baby. He had already sold his Valiant as a show of solidarity. I found myself hesitating to get rid of the old car. Senseless and sentimental. It had outlived its practicality. But I’d left so much of my life behind by adding Jake and a baby to the mix. My body was morphing into something I hardly recognized. And now, being off of work, the Bug and my little collection of eggs felt like the last bits of my old self.

I pointed to the drawing that lay on Jake’s drafting table. “Something I should worry about?”

“We’re in a great place again, aren’t we, Kat? You can’t freak out every time I draw something. Tully will be here any minute.”

I nodded, pushing doubt aside to look into the soft greens and golds of his eyes, which were magnified by the lenses of his glasses. “No one in our family has ever bought a new car. They depreciate by 30 percent as soon as you drive them off the lot, you know. I’m not getting something with a lot of doodads on it.”

“You are definitely Angus Murphy’s daughter.” Jake donned his comically accurate imitation of my dad’s brogue. “The Murphys certainly give every wee penny a mighty tussle before it leaves their purses. They surely do.” He rubbed both palms against my belly. “My sensible wife. At least get power windows. Tully’s been talking for a week about how he’s never driven a car with power windows.”

“Whose car is this, mine or Tully’s?”

The doorbell rang. Jake grinned. “Your answer’s at the door.”

I opened the door to see Tully wearing a crumpled tweed jacket with an extra wide clip-on tie, carrying a battered briefcase jammed full of glossy brochures. His wiry hair had been slicked down with some manner of gelatinous goo and his chin, shorn clean of its customary stubble, was speckled with crimson nicks. “Ready to go, Katie?”

The salesmen couldn’t have known what was about to hit them.

* * *

“SURPRISE!”

The shout that greeted me when I opened my front door nearly knocked me over. I looked around the foyer, taking in the smiling faces of a dozen wonderful women in my life.

After my heart rate slowed to a gallop, I noticed Tully next to me, his lean face stretched into a Stan Laurel grin. He’d insisted on going to nearly every car lot in San Mateo and South San Francisco, eventually endorsing a new Volvo wagon, a deeply discounted end-of-the-year model—with power windows.

“You sneak,” I said, giving him a punch to the shoulder. His skinny chest expanded under his clip-on tie.

Jake gave me a quick kiss. “Gotcha,” he said. “Tully and I are outta here. Off to watch the Niners game at the pub.”

“Don’t worry, Katie. No drinking. Scouts’ honor,” Tully said, crossing his heart with his forefinger.

Alice, right up front, stood beaming, surrounded by a few of my fellow former interns and nurses. From the back of the crowd, Mary K delivered an off-center smile. I resisted my urge to let my eyes travel down to the dangling leg of her jeans. She had not yet healed fully enough to wear a prosthesis. Beside Mary K, tall and golden with a wide smile, Andra Littleton stood holding a huge bouquet of yellow roses.

“Look who I invited to the party,” Mary K said. For a split second, she seemed almost nervous.

The afternoon was a flurry of gifts and food, laughter and swapping of stories of motherhood. Amidst the festivities, Andra and Mary K held hands while Alice kept refilling her own wine glass.

Soon the guests were gone, but for Andra, Mary K, and Alice.

Alice raised her glass and, in a voice louder than seemed necessary, she offered a toast. “To our little Katie,” she slurred. “All grown up and having a daughter. And I’m going to be Nana Alice!” Alice suddenly held her finger to her lips. “Shh,” she said. “That was a little loud.”

“Here honey, why don’t you sit down for a while?” I said.

Alice looked deep into my eyes. “My little Katie,” she repeated. “And I’m—” Alice sniffed and began to bawl. “I just wanted you to be a happy little girl. That’s all I ever wanted. I’m so sorry, Katie.”

I’d never seen Alice drunk. I kissed her and helped her to sit on the sofa. I stepped toward Mary K.

“Sheesh,” Mary K whispered. “Alice is feeling no pain.”

“It’s not like her,” I whispered, watching Alice as she folded baby clothes into a tidy stack.

“We’ll take her on home,” Andra offered. “After we help with the last of the clean-up.”

“It’s all done,” I smiled. “That swarm of women did everything but shampoo the carpets and reshingle the roof.”

They offered to stay until Jake got home, but I was exhausted and ready for bed. Alice had drooped onto the sofa.

“Come on, sweetie,” Andra said in sweet Texas tones. She helped Alice to her feet.

Alice cupped my chin in her hand, speaking groggily. “I just can’t believe it, Katie. I can’t believe my little Katie will soon be a mother.” With that, she broke into a blubbering mess, her words almost as wet as her face. “I just love you so much, Katie. I just never thought—”

Mary K shrugged. “Sentimental drunks.”

As I held the front door, I looked into Andra’s shining face. She’d always been beautiful, but there was something more. Mary K looked happier than I’d seen her in months—years, maybe. “You two look really happy,” I said. “I’m glad.”

Andra glanced toward Mary K. “I’ve lived in a lot of places. I think I’ve finally found home.”

Mary K pulled a cigarette from behind her ear as they ushered Alice toward Andra’s car. “There’s no place like home, right?”

As they pulled away I checked my watch. Eight-thirty. Jake would tease me for pooping out so early, but I headed straight to bed, where I fell into a soft sleep.

* * *

I jerked awake with pain, deep and sharp, gripping me low in my belly. I waited until the vise released its grip. The room was dark. Jake’s side of the bed was empty and the covers lay smooth. The numbers on my bedside clock glowed one-thirty.

I inched my way across the bedroom and out into the hall. The glass of the atrium reflected only moonlight from the window. “Jake,” I called. Only my own voice echoed a reply. I called his name twice more before another wave of pain grabbed me.

I dialed Murphy’s Pub. “Katie, hi!” The music of Mike’s voice was light and playful.

“Hi, Mike. Can I talk to Jake?”

“Sorry Katie, he left early this afternoon. Just after the game started. Smart guy, left before the Niners went straight into the shitter. Oops, sorry. Guess I owe the cussin’ jar, huh?” Mike’s warm belly laugh came over the phone.

Another pain gripped me and I gasped.

“Everything okay, Katie?”

“Just fine.” I steadied my voice. I really didn’t want to discuss my labor pains or my AWOL husband with the weekend bartender.

“Do you want me to wake your dad? He went upstairs a few hours ago, but maybe Jake told him where he was off to.”

“No, I’ll call tomorrow.”

As I set the phone back in its cradle, another contraction grabbed me.
Where is Jake?
Pain grabbed my lower back and left me breathless until it subsided. I brushed my teeth and dressed.